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St. Paul district: 'High-need' areas among changes planned to school choice

By Mila Koumpilovamkoumpilova@pioneerpress.com

Posted:
12/02/2012 12:01:00 AM CST

Updated:
12/03/2012 09:40:34 AM CST

St. Paul hopes to steer more students from neighborhoods facing the steepest challenges to its most popular elementary schools.

Amid a major school-choice overhaul that targets uneven achievement across its schools, next fall the district is designating some city areas as "high-need" using an uncommon combination of family income, test scores and English fluency. It will reserve seats for children from those areas in 10 schools with the lowest portion of low-income students, including six with perennial waiting lists.

Qualifying for the "Reflecting St. Paul" program will rank second on a new list of priorities for getting into coveted schools. Living in the schools' immediate neighborhood will trump all other factors.

When the district first unveiled the integration concept last year, some critics including the NAACP said it would have too limited an effect. More recently, school board members stressed the importance of convincing the community that the system is fair and foolproof.

But district officials believe the initiative will help make the district's highest-achieving schools more diverse.

"This is one of the most unique and innovative models I have seen," said Jackie Turner, St. Paul's chief engagement officer. "I'm anticipating if this goes well, we'll be a national trend leader."

A growing number of districts nationally are using family income as a tool in efforts to integrate their schools.

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They're citing research that suggests sending low-income students to more affluent schools has a powerful effect on the achievement gap between these students and their peers.

BIG CHANGES

A slew of changes are coming to St. Paul enrollment next fall in the final year of its Strong Schools, Strong Communities plan's rollout. New boundaries will take effect for elementary and middle schools, many of which will lose their magnet status and districtwide transportation.

In January, St. Paul will premiere a new school-application website that officials say will streamline the process: After families type in their address, the site will list their options and, down the road, estimate their chances of landing their top picks.

The district estimates about 2,800 of its 38,000 students no longer will receive busing to their current school. Those who change schools will have to apply, and that's where the new priority system comes in. Sibling preference will remain a strong factor in school assignments, officials said.

Here's how "Reflecting St. Paul" will work:

The district is designating some city blocks "high-need" based on the number of children there who:

-- Qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

-- Do not score proficient in math or reading.

-- Are learning English.

It also is designating as "low-poverty" elementary schools where fewer than half of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. A fifth of seats in those schools still available after students from the immediate neighborhood enroll will be reserved for "Reflecting St. Paul" students.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court limited the use of race as a school-enrollment factor in 2007, districts have turned to socioeconomic status as a proxy, said Daniel Jett, superintendent of the West Metro Education Program, an integration consortium of 11 districts. He hasn't heard of any integration efforts that factor in test scores but that seems to make sense, he said.

"Concentrating all the low-performing students in a school is absolutely the worst thing you can do," he said. "You have to spread them out."

Minneapolis gives low-income students priority at four magnet schools that serve predominantly white students; last year, the district set goals for those schools to increase the number of low-income kids they serve and experimented with reserving seats.

Enrollment director Ryan Fair said the greatest challenge has been getting the word out to families who qualify.

"We have to be very mindful that families in poverty have a different set of obstacles they face," he said. "Deciding on a school for September might not be a big priority in January."

The St. Paul program only applies within each of six attendance areas under Strong Schools. Almost all the low-poverty schools are in the city's western third, and most of the city's poorest neighborhoods are in the remaining areas. That led some critics to charge the initiative would have little effect, especially since low-income families would need to be proactive to take advantage.

But Turner said there's plenty of integrating to do in the city's western half, the focus of the program. She pointed to the disparity between Jackson Preparatory Magnet, with more than 90 percent low-income students, and Randolph Heights, with about 20 percent -- less than 3 miles apart.

She said the district will make a push to get word of "Reflecting St. Paul" out; it will expect school staff to do outreach in neighborhoods where they might not have ventured before.

At a recent meeting, school board members peppered Turner and other administrators with questions about the new school-choice rules. Members such as John Brodrick expressed concern the district's application website would spew out enrollment verdicts based on a fairly complex formula, and families will have to trust it works and it's fair.

"I am not a lawyer, but my legal antenna just went wiggle-wiggle," member Anne Carroll said.

EXPECTATIONS

The district has signed a two-year, $112,500 contract with St. Paul-based Urban Planet Software to design and maintain the website. Urban Planet previously created an application site for Minneapolis, where officials say it has worked well.

Board members also asked the district to consider expanding to all staff an employee preference that district educators negotiated in their latest contract. There are about 3,280 teachers and 5,890 total employees in the district.

Parents at the elementary schools with reserved "Reflecting St. Paul" seats said they expected the program would change little. Jill Driscoll, president of the St. Anthony Park School Association, said the district had not yet provided to parents there any information about the initiative.

But, she said, "Our school has always pulled in kids from outside the immediate neighborhood."

At Randolph Heights, parent Tom Clark said many parents at the school would welcome more diversity, but he didn't expect dramatic change.

"There are very few openings at the school each year, so a small percentage of a small number is not all that big a deal," he said.

Starting next fall, St. Paul schools will use a new set of criteria to determine which students get into a school that receives more applications than its available slots. Among students who meet each criteria, siblings of children already enrolled in a school will get preference.

The criteria, in order of importance, are:

1. Students living within the school's community zone.

2. Students qualifying for "Reflecting St. Paul," a voluntary integration program to increase diversity at certain schools.

3. Children of St. Paul Public Schools educators.

4. Students who live within the school's attendance area but outside its immediate community zone.